My thoughts and experiences on atheism, freethought, religion, separation of church and state, politics, philosophy, and just life in general where it relates to the topics.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Does Religion Make Us Stupid?

A lot of Christians believe the myth that men have one less rib than women. This is obviously not true, but many people continue to believe it. All one has to do is look at a skeleton and count the ribs, and it becomes immediately apparent that there is no difference between the genders. Scientists and medical professionals have been looking at skeletons for thousands of years, yet some people are still ignorant of the facts. I believed this myth well into adulthood, despite the fact that I had seen countless pictures of human skeletons in science classes. This belief came from my creationist upbringing and, as a Christian, I never questioned the validity of this claim.

Now I am aware that many Christians realize we all have the same number of ribs. I recently read a post on a website: http://www.creationtips.com/ribs.html
This website offers an interpretation of Genesis 2:21, 21 in which the literal removing of Adam's rib occurred but was not made a permanent part of Adam's genetic code. That is to say, his offspring would henceforth be born as he was created, with a full set of 12 ribs.

What I find so unbelievable is that so many people fail to even question the idea. I was having a conversation with someone about people who are born transgender or intersex, and this person suggested that the people have an X-ray done of their ribs to see if they have 12 ribs or 11. I should point out that this idea was posed to me very recently, several years after I became an atheist. At that time I had never given the matter of men vs women rib numbers much thought. I was intrigued by this idea so I did a quick search on Bing to see if any studies had been done regarding it. Needless to say I felt pretty stupid when I realized that I had been holding on to the creationist belief of men having one less rib than women. I began to think about all the times I had looked at pictures or replicas of a human skeleton and came to find that I had never even considered the idea of counting the ribs for myself. I was truly embarrassed because as an atheist I make it a point to be informed about the things I believe. I look at the world from a scientific standpoint and I don't accept anything without sufficient evidence.

As a child I was taught to believe in God and the biblical account of how the universe began. I can't remember ever being told that it was okay to question it. In fact, when I first learned about Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution, I was given a lecture by my parents when I came home from school talking about it. I was never a very devout believer and as I grew up the bible made less and less sense to me, but that childhood indoctrination still persisted. It took me a long time to overcome that tendency to shun any information that contradicted my religious beliefs. Once I was able to set my beliefs aside and analyze scientific findings objectively, my world changed. I came to the conclusion that Christianity had no basis in fact, and that believing in God without justification was foolish.

Does religion promote stupidity by advocating an unshakable dogma that must never be questioned? At the age of seven, when I came home talking about evolution and was told to disregard it completely, was I being instructed to be willfully ignorant? Don't question, just believe... Anti-Science? Anti-Knowledge? Anti-Intelligence? Christians, as a whole, are by no means stupid. Some of the most intelligent people I know are religious, but when you teach children to believe what this one book says and disregard anything that contradicts it, you are discouraging independent thought and exploration. Why had I never once, neither as a Christian nor as an atheist, stopped to count the number of ribs on a human skeleton? Why didn't the thought occur to me? Why did I accept what a 1000+ year old book with no extra-biblical evidence to support it told me about the world? I was told that a certain thing was true because it said so in the Bible, and I accepted that and felt no need to discover for myself whether or not it was true. I'll pose the question again. Does religion make us stupid?

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I think this is totally ridiculous. The bible isn't just an 1000+ year old book. many people have written parts of the bible and they have all witnessed the things that have happened. Many of the prophesies in the Bible have come true. Jesus was real and how on Earth could the Virgin Mary have a child when she was just that, a virgin? Jesus came to us from heaven and he believed in God, he prayed to god, and he loved God his holy father. It's blasphemy to say Jesus didn't exist, that all those people in the bible didn't exist. Jesus died on the cross to have God forgive us for all our sins. What kind of person would die a brutal, painful death like that for something that didn't exist? Christians are by far no stupid. We have hope in a being that IS up there. Just as I say other religions and you're religion aren't stupid. But God does exist, and Jesus did. It doesn't matter about the whole skeleton thing, I do admit that we have evolved from how we used to be. Religion does NOT make us stupid. you're stupid for thinking that Christianity is stupid.

@Anonymous #1You say that many people have written parts of the Bible and that they all witnessed the events that were purported to have happened. What evidence do you have to support this? Can you provide any extra-biblical accounts? How do you know they witnessed this stuff? How do you know they even existed?

You claim that many of the biblical prophesies have come true. Name one.

I love your next sentence. "Jesus was real and how on Earth could the Virgin Mary have a child when she was just that, a virgin?" My answer to that is simple. She couldn't. Even if there was some sort of evidence that these people were real, you couldn't prove that the virgin birth actually occured and it would be foolish to believe that it did. No such thing has ever been known to occur in nature.

"It's blasphemy to say Jesus didn't exist, that all those people in the bible didn't exist." Doesn't that kind of prove my point? The Bible discourages independent thought. Believe everything it tells you and don't question it or you'll burn.

"Jesus died on the cross to have God forgive us for all our sins. What kind of person would die a brutal, painful death like that for something that didn't exist?"

First off, why are we all automatically sinful and wrong, and in need of saving? If God created us and God is perfect, why did he create such a flawed race of people? You ask why Jesus would willingly go through all that for something that didn't exist. Well, if you believe what the Bible says then your question has a big flaw in it. He did believe that your god exists. As to why he would do that, why not? He gets tortured for three days and in return he gets to basically be God for all of eternity.

"Christians are by far no stupid. We have hope in a being that IS up there. Just as I say other religions and you're religion aren't stupid."

Ignoring your poor grammar, I just want to note that I was not accusing Christians of being stupid. In fact I made a point to say that. Also, atheism isn't a religion any more than theism IS a religion. It is a lack of belief in a god. Atheists have no core beliefs. We don't have any tenets or doctrines. All we share is a lack of belief.

You say it doesn't matter about the "whole skeleton thing." Did it matter when everyone thought the Earth was flat? Did it matter when everyone thought the Earth was the center of the universe? When is it every a good thing for the majority of people to live their entire lives believing a falsehood?

And finally, my favorite part of your comment. "Religion does NOT make us stupid. you're stupid for thinking that Christianity is stupid."

First off, I never said that Christianity is stupid. I may hold that opinion but in my blog post I never made that claim. You ending your comment with an insult does nothing but reinforce my claims.

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About Me

I'm a liberal atheist who values logic, reasoning and science when learning how the world works. I decided to create this blog to get my ideas out there and discuss my views with both believers and non-believers.